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Becasses Et Becassines Roties I

Roasted woodcock wrapped in thin pork fat, served on toast with watercress garnish and optional currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and watercress work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Becasses Et Becassines Roties I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Do not draw the birds.

  2. Truss the birds and roll each in a thin slice of fat pork.

  3. Place each bird in a roasting pan on a piece of toast.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast for about the same time as quail, until very underdone.

  2. Remove the pork after roasting.

  3. Garnish with watercress and serve with a salad.

  4. Serve currant jelly on the side, if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pork + watercresstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Watercress + curranttop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + curranttop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Provides the main meat, which is meant to be served very rare.
Fat pork
Bastes the birds as it melts, keeping the lean meat moist during roasting.
Toast
Sits under each bird to catch drippings, soaking up juices and flavour.

The step that matters

Roast until very underdone. Woodcock is a small game bird with lean meat that dries out and toughens quickly when overcooked. Pulling it while still very rare keeps it tender and juicy, so check it early rather than letting it cook through.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, watercress):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, watercress. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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